Do you Address, Maintain or Adapt

In most relationships there are common threads in disagreements and arguments – and the finances ranks in the top 5 of those common issues. New research now demonstrates techniques that couple can use to reduce their conflicts while addressing financial uncertainty.

Regardless of income level, all couples face times of financial uncertainty. Whether they are deciding how to get food to the table for their family or whether or not to sell their vacation home, there are times in every couple’s relationship when finances become topic of conversation and the outcome is not certain.

Using specific strategies researchers found that stress and conflict can be reduced. In the study, researchers found that couples either attempted to reduce the uncertainty, maintain it or adapt to it.

Although maintaining uncertainty around money is not healthy, neither is adaptation. In both instances the couples didn’t address the issues that got them to this situation in the first place and decided to either bury their head in the sand and pretend it didn’t exist, or to adapt to the uncertainty and decide that this would just be a part of their everyday life.

Instead, it’s important to face the issues and challenges at hand, because no matter how deep you bury your head, those problems don’t disappear. One of the contributing factors has been the difficulty that people have talking about money. If couples didn’t grow up talking openly and honestly about money situations, it was more difficult for them to have that conversation with their partner.

The healthy approach was to gather all the facts about the situation and make an informed decision that both partners were involved in.

Making Changes

The first step with any change in life is fact gathering. It’s time to find out exactly how much you are in debt, how much you have in liquid assets and how much income you have coming in. Coupled with your standard monthly expenses, you can now make an informed decision about how to handle this particular situation and the situations to come.

The difficult piece of the puzzle is that if it were easy to face these issues in the first place you probably wouldn’t have found yourself in the current situation.

But, like all good things, this takes time and energy to rectify. Taking one step at a time is the best way, and that starts with having an open and honest conversation with your partner about your finances. Develop a plan together to address the challenges and you’ll find that you’ll benefit twofold. You’ll not only overcome this financial challenge but your relationship will also grow stronger!